A Friend In Knead
by orangealuminumcan
Summary: Marinette is stuck working the bakery instead of hanging out with her friends. Luckily Adrien rises to the occasion. It's the yeast he could do. He can't stand to see her in such pain.
1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

_Collège Françoise Dupont_

* * *

The bell rang, releasing students for the day and the weekend. The entire classroom heaved a sigh of relief. Mme. Mendelev clapped her hands briskly.

"Okay, you're free to go," she said over the rustle of students stuffing things into their bags. "Have a safe weekend."

Adrien didn't know about "safe," but he was certainly looking forward to his weekend.

"We still on for that movie?" Nino asked eagerly.

"Looking forward to it," Adrien replied, rising with his friend. They looked up at Alya and Marinette expectantly. Neither of the girls were paying attention. Alya had her arm tight around Marinette's shoulders and was glaring into the other girl's eyes.

"You have to!" Alya hissed in an undertone. "I went to all the trouble to get us invited and everything!"

"Alya, I can't. I really can't! I'm sorry," Marinette kept saying.

"What's going on?" Nino asked. "We were all going to see Star Wars this weekend. 3D IMAX and everything!"

Alya turned around without releasing her grip on Marinette. Adrien noticed that Marinette looked like she was in serious distress, though he couldn't tell if it was from the headlock or something else.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. Marinette stiffened up and blushed. She struggled harder against her friend's grip and popped free, arms flailing.

"It's nothing! I mean it's something but it's nothing! You're fine. I mean it's fine! Not that you're not fine, you're very fine, but…" Marinette babbled. As usual Adrien only caught about one word in five, but it seemed like something was actually wrong.

"This girl says she can't come," Alya translated. She shot Marinette a disappointed glare but it didn't seem like she was actually angry at her friend.

"But I already got the tickets!" Nino protested.

"I know, Nino. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Marinette said, looking dejected. "I have to help at the bakery for a few days. Just until my dad is better."

"Aw man, that sucks," Nino said. "Is your dad okay?"

Marinette smiled reassuringly. "He'll be fine. It's just a cold. He should be better in a day or two."

"Which is why I'm saying it wouldn't be a big deal if she just came to the movie with us. It's only a couple of hours," Alya said. She turned to Adrien with a gleam in her eye. "Come on, Adrien, tell her she has to come!"

Adrien looked over at Marinette. Her face had frozen in a tense smile and her eyes were as big as saucers. There was a sort of panicked urgency in her expression, but he couldn't tell what it meant. He glanced between the two girls awkwardly.

"Well, I mean… Er. We already got the ticket and everything."

Marinette waved her hands in front of Adrien as though fending off his words. "No no no no no no, really it's fine! Give my ticket to Max, I'm sure he won't mind seeing it again. I have to run sorry again Nino bye!"

With that the black haired girl turned and sprinted for the door. She tripped on the riser and Adrien saw her limbs windmill as she went down. There was a terrific crash from the hallway and Alya hurried to the doorway. By the time she reached it Marinette's footsteps were already fading down the hall.

"Marinette you better text me, girl!" Alya called after her friend. "Geez," she muttered, turning back to her other friends with a shrug and a sigh.

"Is everything really okay?" Adrien asked, shouldering his bag.

"I mean, M. Dupain is definitely sick, but it's not like he's dying or anything," Alya replied. "I don't see why Marinette can't get a few hours off to come to the movies. She was really looking forward to it, too," she added. She and Nino shared a look, but it went completely over Adrien's head.

"Yeah, it's too bad," he said. He caught Max as the shorter boy was headed out the door and told him about the suddenly available ticket. Max was thrilled at the chance to see Star Wars for the sixth time, and agreed to meet the others at the cinema the next day. He turned back to Nino and Alya. "Well, I should get going too. See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow!" Alya said with surprising sweetness. She waved at the two boys as they took off and immediately bent her head over her phone. Adrien frowned at her as Nino led the way out the door.

"Did she seem a little weird to you?" he asked.

"Who, Alya? No, not weird at all. Why?" Nino smiled at Adrien brightly.

Something was up with the two of them but Adrien couldn't put his finger on it.

* * *

AUTHOR NOTES - It's official: I'm Ladybug trash now. Please pray for me. Also I'm looking for a beta if anybody is interested.

\- Not gonna lie, I mostly wrote this because of a nagging irritation at people romanticizing working in a bakery.

\- Go see a star war. It's really good.

\- "Mme" is "Madame" and "M" is "Monsieur," in case you didn't know.


	2. Chapter 2 - Not Helping

Marinette's alarm went off at 4am. The only appropriate response was a pained groan.

"Nooooo," she practically sobbed into her pillow. Next to her head her cell phone beeped insistently. She fumbled for it blindly and her hand made contact with it. There was a clatter as it fell off the bed onto the floor.

"Aaargh." Marinette rolled to the side of the bed and groped for the still beeping phone. Once again her sleep-numb fingers betrayed her and the phone skittered away across the floor.

"Marinette, turn it off," Tikki begged sleepily.

"I'm trying, I'm trying."

There was no getting around it, even without the alarm. Time to get up. Marinette rolled awkwardly out of bed and switched on her light. Tikki burrowed deeper in her little makeshift bed in protest. Marinette was still too sleepy to even feel jealous. She lurched across the room after her phone and swiped her alarm off.

She was glad she had thought to lay out her clothes the night before because she certainly was in no shape to remember anything as complicated as pants at 4:06am. She dressed in a plain t-shirt and a pair of old yoga pants, and pulled her hair into its usual pigtails. She tucked a still-slumbering Tikki into her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and staggered downstairs.

The bakery was already warming up. Judging from the heat of the main oven Sabine had probably been up for a couple hours already.

"Good morning, Maman," Marinette said.

"Good morning, Marinette. Thank you so much for helping me today," Sabine said as Marinette entered. She was wearing a plain white Cheongsam instead of one of her usual colorful ones and her black hair was covered with a kerchief.

"'S fine," Marinette mumbled. She pulled a fresh apron off the shelf and tied it around her waist. Even considering the hour she was having more trouble with it than usual.

"Oh dear, you're so tired you put your purse on," Sabine said sympathetically.

Marinette shook her head to clear it. She was so used to carrying Tikki with her everywhere she went it was instinct to grab her purse. There was no way she could carry the kwami with her in the bakery, though.

"Oh, whoops! I'll just set it under the counter for now. Do you need me to set up the case?"

"Yes, please!" Sabine said.

Marinette stepped up into the storefront of the bakery. Despite her loathing of everything about the hour of 4am, there was something oddly reverential about it. The interior of the bakery was lit only by the display lights in the windows hanging over her father's towering display cakes and pyramids of colorful macarons. Outside, the streets of Paris were a velvety blue dotted here and there with golden street lights and the colorful flags of illuminated awnings. It felt for a minute like she was a mermaid princess in an underwater castle, looking out at her watery kingdom in the depths.

The illusion was shattered when a Noctlien bus rocketed past.

Marinette shook off her sleepy thoughts and removed her purse. As she knelt to place it under the counter she opened it a crack to check on her kwami. The small red creature was curled up in her handkerchief bed, still asleep.

"Tikki, Tikki," Marinette whispered until the kwami stirred.

"What is it?"

"I can't carry you in the bakery. I have to leave you here. Is that going to be okay?"

"Fine, fine," Tikki said, quickly going back to sleep. Marinette supposed she was still close enough if she needed to transform into Ladybug, but she really hoped she could avoid that, at least for today. She was way too tired to be fighting akuma.

She straightened and got to work.

* * *

It wasn't until after the mid-day rush that Marinette finally got a chance to catch her breath. She had been running almost non-stop from the time she came downstairs until now, with only a brief break to stuff some breakfast in her mouth. She had peeked at her phone earlier, but it was so early that Alya hadn't even woken up yet.

Now that there was a lull Marinette was able to surreptitiously check her phone while she stood behind the counter waiting for the pre-goûter rush. She scrolled through Alya's messages.

 _9:54_

 _Alya: gonna see a star war!_

 _10:07_

 _Alya: omg if nino is late and i miss this he is DEAD_

 _10:22_

 _Alya: somebody looks nice today… ;)_

Marinette opened the attached picture eagerly. It was a snap of Adrien grinning as he looked towards the camera in the line for popcorn. Nino was mugging in the background but Marinette didn't pay him any attention. It really was a great picture of Adrien. Marinette sighed appreciatively and saved it to her phone.

 _10:27_

 _Alya: i told him to say hi to you_

Marinette opened the next picture. Alya had snapped a selfie with Adrien waving bemusedly.

"Omigod," Marinette gasped. Bless Alya and her perfect camera work. Her friend was hardly in the picture at all and it was just a picture of a smiling, waving Adrien, just for her. Marinette felt her face go red and her knees get weak. She squealed in delight and flipped back to the texts to thank Alya.

 _12:34_

 _Alya: omg you have to see this movieeeee!_

 _Alya: its so goooooood!_

 _12:36_

 _Alya: sorry you had to miss it girl_

 _12:47_

 _Alya: I feel so bad about it._

 _Alya: I want to make it up to you ;)_

 _Alya: So I'm sending you a souvenir. 3_

Marinette narrowed her eyes at her phone. Alya didn't normally use punctuation in her texts. What sort of souvenir could she have gotten from a movie? And what did she mean "sending?" Marinette started to tap out a reply when she heard the bell over the shop door jangle.

"Bonjour," the customer said. Marinette hastily shoved her phone into her pocket and looked up to greet them.

"Bonjour!" she said automatically and then froze.

Adrien was standing in front of her.

* * *

Marinette's face popped up on Alya's phone as a call came in. Alya smiled with satisfaction. Her friend had been quiet all day. Maybe she had finally managed to say two consecutive sentences to her crush. Alya chuckled to herself. Not likely. She accepted the call and answered cheerfully.

"Âllo!"

"Âllo, Alya," Marinette said. Alya frowned. Marinette sounded like a zombie.

"Marinette? Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me."

Something was still off about Marinette's voice. It was like she had been hollowed out. Maybe she was in shock from an overdose of Adrien.

"So… tell me all about it," Alya said. "How was your day?"

"Oh. Well." Alya felt a chill of apprehension go down her spine. Marinette was sounding more animated, but not the least bit happy. "I worked in the bakery all morning starting at four."

"At four?!"

"Yes. Because I was working in the bakery, not the shop." Marinette's voice was tight.

"But that means…."

"Adrien came by and saw me in my bakery clothes. My white shirt and grey yoga pants."

Alya flinched. "But the only grey yoga pants you own are the ones…"

"The ones with the bleach stains. Yes, those yoga pants." Alya started to sweat.

"Omigod, Marinette. I'm so sorry. I thought you were just going to working at the register. I never would have told Adrien to come visit you if I had known. I'll make it up to you, I promise! Do you want me to come in and do the register for you tomorrow?"

There was a long silence from Marinette's end. Just when Alya thought the call had been dropped Marinette's thin voice came through the speaker.

"No need. Because, you see, when Adrien came in my mom had to say hello. And then Adrien said it must be hard with only two people. And then he said he wished there was a way he could help. And then my mom said that he should come in tomorrow morning when we open and work the register."

Alya gaped at the phone, certain her ears had deceived her.

"Are you for real?!" she managed to say.

"Yes!" Marinette finally exploded. Her voice finally lost the dead tone, but Alya was pretty sure this panicky version wasn't an improvement. "Adrien is going to come in at seven in the morning and work the register while I get all sweaty and messy and covered in flour and I'm probably going to do something idiotic like forget to add salt or turn the oven up too high and I'll ruin everything because there's no possible way I can focus on anything when he's around and he'll think I'm stupid and he already thinks I'm an idiot because I had to show him how to use the till so he'd know what to do tomorrow morning oh my god he'll be here in like twelve hours ALYA!" Marinette ended on a wail.

"Just- um, just take some deep breaths for now," Alya said, stalling for time. "Look, it won't be that bad. He'll be in the front and you'll be in the back, and he'll probably be too busy to pay any attention to you."

Marinette groaned. Alya felt both better and worse - better because at least Marinette didn't sound like a tape being played too fast, but worse because she hated knowing that she was probably right. Adrien was just being friendly. The fact that he was helping out a classmate was probably the appeal for him. Despite the blow to her friend's pride, it was true that Adrien probably wouldn't be able to remember what Marinette was wearing, let alone whether or not she looked cute.

"That doesn't really make me feel better," Marinette sighed on the other end of the phone.

"I know. Sorry," Alya said. "But really, what's the worst that could happen?" she said brightly.

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line and Alya felt her smile shrivel off her face.

"Er, well. Good luck tomorrow," she added lamely.

"Thanks," Marinette said wearily.

* * *

AUTHOR NOTES: I'm sure everything will go fine...

\- In France everybody says "bonjour" when they enter a shop (and "merci" when they leave.) Though of course the translation is "hello" or "good day" it's such a unique cultural thing I left it in French.

\- Sorry for the slow start and general lack of puns. The fun starts next time.


End file.
